Dark Days
by RLD Flame-point Callie-co
Summary: Sequel to Perfect Storm: Torn apart in the aftermath of the explosion, Peter and Bella must find their way back to each other in time to stop the spread of a mutated strain of the Shanti virus that infects vampires as well as humans.
1. The Day the Whole World Went Away

**Disclaimer: I still don't own Twilight or Heroes; I just like borrowing from them and twisting things to suit my own purposes.**

 **So, here's the sequel to Perfect Storm, and unlike its predecessor this story can't be read as a standalone since it picks up directly where the last one left off. The first part of it will be based on Heroes s2, and then go completely AU for the second half. Also, I've decided this will be my last Heroes/Twilight crossover; I've really enjoyed my time in this fandom, but I think I've pretty much exhausted all the possibilities here.**

Chapter 1: The Day the Whole World Went Away

"Stay with me...please..."

But no matter what Peter did, Bella wouldn't wake up. Even though her airway was clear, she seemed unable to breathe, and he had to face the fact that maybe he couldn't save her. Maybe he should take her to a hospital, although he didn't see how he could possibly make it before she suffered permanent brain damage, even if he flew. He needed to get her there _right now_...

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he and Bella were instantly transported to the nearest emergency room. Peter had almost forgotten the Japanese time traveler who seemed able to appear wherever he wanted, and he had no idea how he'd tapped into the man's power without thinking of him, nor did he care; he was just glad it had happened. "Help! I need some help here!"

The hospital staff leapt into action, loading Bella onto a gurney and wheeling her away while one of them jumped up there with her and started performing CPR to keep oxygen in her blood. "Keep her alive no matter what it takes, you understand?" Peter called after them.

"Excuse me." A nurse was tugging on his sleeve. "Can you tell me what happened?"

He spent the next fifteen minutes answering questions about the events leading up to Bella's sudden loss of consciousness (had she had too much to drink? Taken drugs? Had a seizure?), everything he knew about her medical history (which admittedly wasn't much; as far as he could tell she had always been perfectly healthy), and her next of kin. The nurse seemed a bit skeptical of his cover story, which gave the impression that he and Bella were just strolling through Kirby Plaza when she collapsed for no apparent reason, and kept looking curiously at his burned shirt, but decided not to pursue the issue; the police could do that, if the doctors suspected foul play.

He hurried off to report his findings, and Peter thought he should probably get out of there before someone called the cops, but he didn't. He couldn't leave without knowing whether they had been able to revive Bella, even if staying meant getting arrested. As he headed for the waiting room, it occurred to him that he was bound to attract unwanted attention if he walked in looking like he'd just escaped a firebombing, and then he remembered Candice the shapeshifter, who had changed her clothes as well as her face. Maybe he could use her power to make himself look less scorched and disheveled. Closing his eyes, he focused on the image he wanted to project, then opened them to find his clothes exactly as they had been before he exploded.

Mastering some new ability usually sent a surge of exhilaration through him, but any excitement he might have felt was quickly snuffed out by the almost reflexive thought that flashed through his mind - _I've gotta tell Bella about this_ \- before his subconscious caught up with reality and he remembered that he might not get to tell her anything ever again.

###

After what seemed like a very long time, one of the doctors who had worked on Bella came out to the waiting area to let him know what had happened. "Your friend is...stable," she told Peter, although she didn't look as cheerful as most doctors did when reporting a successful outcome.

"But?"

The doctor hesitated. "It's a strange case," she said slowly. "There's no outward sign of injury, but she seems to have suffered severe trauma to her brain. We'll need to run more tests, get a second and maybe even a third opinion as we explore treatment options..." She was trying to reassure him, but her thoughts told a different story. _Whatever happened to that girl, it left her in bad shape - she can't even breathe on her own. There's a good chance she's never going to wake up._

"She'll never wake up?" Peter repeated in a voice that sounded calm only because he was too shell-shocked to get upset. "Are you sure?"

The doctor blinked; she didn't think she'd said that part out loud. "It's really too early to tell. We haven't-"

"Can I see her?"

"Are you family?"

"She doesn't have any family nearby; her father lives in Washington."

The doctor nodded sympathetically. "You can stay with her as long as you want. I bet he'll be glad she isn't alone." She showed him to the ICU, where Bella was being carefully monitored as they tried to work out the cause of her condition. "I'll check back with you after I make my rounds. Press the call button if there's any change, okay?"

Peter nodded absently, never taking his eyes off the motionless form in the bed. Someone had cleaned the blood off her face and closed her eyes - she might have looked peaceful if not for the breathing tube down her throat and all the other wires and tubes hooked into her body, some wrapped around her hands while others snaked under her hospital gown, connecting her to a host of machines. He sat down on the edge of her bed, careful not to disturb the equipment as he reached out and touched her cheek. "I'm so sorry, Bella. This is all my fault; I thought I was a hero, that I would save the world, but instead I almost destroyed it. I would have, if it wasn't for you. You're the real hero."

Being heroic didn't sound as good as it had when he first discovered his powers, though. Of course he was glad the city was safe, but he couldn't help feeling that Bella's life was too high a price to pay for saving it - maybe she wasn't technically dead yet, but according to that doctor she might as well be. _If someone had to die, it should've been me._ It seemed horribly unfair that the explosion had been his fault, yet he had walked away without a scratch while Bella lay here with a machine breathing for her.

"It's such a tragedy to see someone so young cut down in the prime of life, isn't it?"

He glanced up - and saw that the voice belonged to Daniel Linderman. "You! What the hell are you doing here?"

"Well, when I realized the nuclear holocaust had been averted, I turned my helicopter around and returned to investigate. With my resources, it wasn't terribly difficult to locate you - or at least it was easy to discover that your friend had been admitted to this hospital, and I was certain you would be wherever she was."

"What do you want?" Peter growled, clenching his fists as he fought the urge to punch the old man in the face. If only they were somewhere, anywhere else...but an intensive care unit, with all its critically ill patients and delicate equipment, was not a good place for a fistfight.

"What I've always wanted: to aid in the betterment of humankind."

"You've got a funny way of going about it."

Linderman sighed and arranged his face into an expression of contrition. "Perhaps it was misguided of me to think a large-scale disaster could be a catalyst for good, but you must understand that I believed the city's destruction was inevitable. I was merely trying to make the best of a bad situation."

"No, you wanted it to happen. You kidnapped Bella to try and stop her from helping me."

"As I said, I was misguided; I'd become so focused on how I would manage the explosion's aftermath that I no longer considered the possibility that it might be better if it didn't happen in the first place."

"So now you want me to believe you've seen the error of your ways? It's a little late for that." Peter's gaze flicked back to Bella. "The damage is done."

"Yes, but we can still stop something similar from happening to anyone else. The organization I work for once undertook research aimed at creating a vaccine to neutralize the abilities of dangerous people like Sylar and yourself-"

"'Neutralize'? You mean you can take away our powers?"

"That was the idea, yes."

Peter got in Linderman's face again. "So you could've stopped Sylar's killing spree any time you wanted, you could've kept me from exploding, but you just let it all happen?!"

"No, I didn't - haven't I already said I believed there was no way to stop the explosion? Sadly, our vaccine was never completed - we weren't able to create a working formula, and then we lost our top scientist - but due to recent events, I think it's time we take that project off the shelf."

"You keep saying 'we'..."

"Yes, I'd very much like your help to make my vision of a world where someone like Sylar could easily be rendered powerless a reality. You have exceptional power, Peter - you would be the ultimate test of our efforts."

"You want me to be your guinea pig?" The idea that he would agree to that was ridiculous...on the other hand, would getting rid of his powers really be so bad? In the end, they'd brought him nothing but grief. All the good he'd thought he would do had turned out to be just a pipe dream; the only thing he had accomplished with his so-called gifts was destroying the girl he loved. Really, what good had any of them done? They hadn't exactly solved all the world's problems - in fact, the world would have been better off if people like Sylar and Ted had been normal. Then there were the ones like Nathan and Claire who just wanted to live their lives free of the complications and danger that came with being different, but couldn't because of something they never asked for and had no choice in. _Maybe everybody would be better off if all these special abilities just went away..._

Sensing that Peter was starting to come around to his way of thinking, Linderman added one final push. "And of course if we didn't have to devote valuable resources to dealing with threats like Sylar, we could focus more on other ways of helping people, such as improving modern medicine. We might even be able to find a remedy for Miss Swan's unfortunate condition."

The empath's eyes widened ever so slightly; he looked at Bella again, then back at Linderman. "You really think you could do that?"

"I believe it's a definite possibility."

Peter's answer was immediate and decisive. "If you can help her, I'll do whatever you want."

Linderman beamed; people were so easy to manipulate when they were blinded by emotion. "Excellent!" He pulled back the privacy curtain around Bella's bed and motioned to the Haitian, who had been lurking out of sight, making sure Linderman's ploy wasn't ruined by Peter reading his mind at an inopportune moment. "Have you finished the memory wipes?"

The Haitian nodded. "No one will remember that we were here."

"Memory wipes?"

"Secrecy is an unfortunate necessity in our line of work, Peter," Linderman patiently explained. "I assure you the procedure is entirely harmless and painless." It was mostly true - a person had to be subjected to repeated memory wipes over a long period of time before suffering serious residual damage, and if there was any pain involved, it was instantly forgotten. "Now, if you'll follow my colleague outside..."

He lingered for a moment after Peter left with the Haitian, staring into Bella's still, expressionless face. He could heal her right now, but he had no intention of doing so. Awake, she had been nothing but trouble, whereas in her current state she made a very useful bargaining chip to hold over Peter; besides, while he liked to think he was above such pettiness, he had to admit that it was rather satisfying to see the stubbornly defiant girl who had been directly responsible for helping Peter thwart his plans reduced to a lifeless shell. _No,_ he told himself, _I do believe it's best if Bella Swan stays right where she is._


	2. Living Dead Girl

**Sorry for not updating sooner; as I've told the readers of all my other stories, my life has been really hectic since I started grad school. I'm on winter break right now, but this chapter was hard to write, so I appreciate your patience.**

Chapter 2: Living Dead Girl

 _3 hours ago, just before the explosion_

"We're not leaving you."

"There's nothing you can do here, Elle! Just go! You've done enough for me already, both of you." A faint moan reached their ears, causing Bella to glance down at where Niki was beginning to stir, then across the plaza at Micah and D.L., who had just made it outside and were running toward them. "Get them out of here. _Go!_ "

Still Elle and her mate hesitated. Running away at such a crucial moment felt disloyal and cowardly...but Bella wasn't wrong in saying there was nothing they could do to help. Even if they had been willing to kill Peter, it wasn't an option anymore; at these levels, the radiation coming off him would burn their highly flammable bodies to ash if they tried to touch him. Bella was the only one who stood any chance of averting disaster now, and while Elle and Edward wanted to stay and see how it all turned out, the impulse they both felt to get each other out of danger overrode everything else. Edward lifted the semi-conscious Niki Sanders off the pavement, and the two vampires sprang into motion; in less than a second, they were on the other side of the plaza.

"Here." Edward stopped in front of D.L. and thrust Niki into her husband's arms. "Take her and Micah and find shelter. Hurry!" He doubted there was any shelter that would protect them if Bella's efforts failed, but there was nothing he could do about that. He and Elle couldn't carry all three of them, and even if they could, he wasn't sure they would be able to escape in time. In any case, D.L. had the power of intangibility, so perhaps he could somehow use that to protect his family.

Racing back to Elle's side, Edward urged her to get going again; unwilling to leave him behind, she had stopped when he did. Together, they scaled the outer wall of Linderman's corporate headquarters - there were so many buildings in Manhattan that they could get almost anywhere on the island via the rooftops, and running at full speed was a lot easier with no cars or pedestrians in the way. They darted across the tops of skyscrapers, dropped hundreds of feet onto shorter structures, and leapt over alleys until there were no more roofs to jump to, just the black water of the Hudson River swirling below.

He grabbed her hand as they plunged toward the river, earning a confused look from the blonde - she hadn't spent much time in water even after her conversion improved her control over her powers so that getting wet no longer caused her to shock herself and was by no means an expert swimmer, but she thought it would be easier with both hands free. Edward had no intention of swimming, though; as soon as they hit the water, he dragged her to the bottom of the river. With their chances of outrunning the blast uncertain, he had determined that they would be safer underwater, at least from burning. For them, anything else was survivable.

They waited on the muddy riverbed for five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes, peering anxiously up through the murky water, but the blinding flash of a massive nuclear explosion overhead never came.

 _Can we go back up now?_ Elle asked a little over an hour later. _I'm pretty sure if the city was gonna blow up, it would've happened by now. Also, not breathing sucks, and I don't even want to think about what all the muck in this river's doing to my hair._

Edward nodded and followed her back to the surface. After leaving the river, they returned to Kirby Plaza, only to find that Bella and Peter were long gone. They subsequently checked Peter's apartment, the Petrelli mansion, and their own house, but there was no sign of their friends anywhere. Their scents had been freshest in Kirby Plaza, so the vampires went back and did a thorough search for any clues as to where they might have gone from there. They didn't find much - there were no scent trails leading away from the plaza, nor any sign of what had occurred there except for Sylar's ashes.

"Where the hell could they have gone? Why can't we pick up their scent? And why won't they answer their damn phones?!" Elle glared at her new cell phone - her old one had quit working after spending over an hour at the bottom of the Hudson, but luckily the Cullens always kept backups handy - as if it was to blame for the unanswered calls.

"Maybe they can't. The last we saw of Bella, she was dead on her feet; the effort involved in holding back the explosion must have exhausted her, so Peter probably took her to a hospital. He would have had to turn his phone off if he wanted to stay with her."

"So how are we supposed to find out which hospital they went to?"

"Carlisle can get that information - he is Bella's doctor after all."

###

The head of the Cullen family arrived in New York with Charlie Swan the following evening; since he possessed both a stellar reputation in the medical field and a certain degree of familiarity with Bella, he had no trouble getting himself invited to consult on her case.

"It doesn't look good," he reported after his initial discussion with her other doctors. "The first test results have come in, and they showed no neural activity."

"English, please," Elle demanded. "I don't speak doctor."

Carlisle sighed and broke the news as gently as he could without sugarcoating the facts. "No neural activity means little or no brain function...which could mean brain death."

"Brain dead?" Elle echoed in a voice that sounded strangely hollow to her own ears. She wanted to say more, to insist that Carlisle must have made a mistake, but her tongue seemed to have gone numb. Luckily, someone else did the talking for her.

"He can't be certain of that yet," Edward said reassuringly. "Bella's coma might be the result of something temporary - swelling in her brain, for example - that will resolve itself in time."

"That's true," Carlisle agreed, "and no official determination will be made for at least seventy-two hours. All the same-"

Edward broke in before Carlisle could continue; he understood why his father hated to give people false hope only to have it crushed later, but he didn't think Elle really needed to hear about the other patients Carlisle had encountered over his decades-long career who had arrived in the same condition as Bella and never recovered. "We'll just have to hope for the best until then. Now, what about Peter?"

Edward's attempt to steer the conversation away from doom and gloom backfired spectacularly - although it shouldn't have been possible, Carlisle somehow managed to look even grimmer. "Peter wasn't at the hospital, and no one who was on duty when Bella was first brought in remembered seeing him then either. He's gone."

"You mean 'gone' in the permanent sense? But he was supposed to be able to heal," Elle protested, albeit without much conviction. Being at the epicenter of an explosion of that magnitude - let alone being the source of it - would almost certainly have atomized a human body; they had known all along that it would take nothing less than a miracle for Peter to come back from that.

"Yes, but even his powers have limits. Do you honestly think anything short of death could have kept him away from Bella right now?"

Elle couldn't argue with that. Peter would never desert Bella, therefore, if he wasn't at the hospital with her, he must be dead. _And she never even knew how he felt about her... They saved the city, and_ this _is what they get for it?_ "This sucks!" Spinning on her heel, she stalked out.

From the next room, Edward and Carlisle heard the crackle of electricity and the sound of glass breaking as she vented her anger and sadness on the fine china Esme had given her and Edward when they moved to New York. He started to go after her, but Carlisle held him back. "This is Elle's first experience with the consequences of getting attached to mortals, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Then she must be allowed to process it in her own way. Remember, Edward, you and I have both lived a very long time, so we've grown accustomed to the transience of human life, but she has not."

"You're right, as always. I'll give her space."

Turning away, Edward's gaze fell on a book Bella had left on the living room window seat, and he crossed the room to pick it up; it felt wrong to leave it there, lying open as if she was going to walk in at any moment and start reading it again. As he put it back on the shelf, he glanced at the title printed on its spine: _Romeo and Juliet_ , her favorite of all Shakespeare's works. It seemed cruelly ironic that she had been so fond of romantic tragedies, and in the end, her own life had become one.

###

Days passed, then a week, and as Carlisle had expected, Bella never regained consciousness. The doctors, unable to find any injury, disease, or congenital abnormality in her brain to account for her condition, were baffled. Specialists were called in to examine her, but none of them could come up with an explanation either - she was perfectly healthy, apart from the fact that she wouldn't wake up and was totally dependent on her respirator and feeding tubes to keep her body functioning.

This dragged on for just over two months before her parents put a stop to it; having lost hope that anyone could find a way to help their daughter, they didn't want her treated like a science experiment. That was when they started talking seriously about turning off her life support, but they quickly hit an impasse. Although neither of them wanted Bella to go on wasting away in her half-dead state, they couldn't bring themselves to let her go.

Unbeknownst to Charlie and Renée, Elle had her own ideas about what to do for Bella - one last treatment no human doctor could prescribe - if only she could convince Carlisle. He was reluctant to try it because, while he had personally witnessed vampire venom curing lethal diseases and repairing catastrophic injuries, he had never seen or heard of it being used to revive a brain dead patient, so he couldn't guarantee the result. For all they knew, he argued, they might only succeed in creating the world's first comatose vampire, and what would become of her then? As a human, she could at least die naturally, peacefully, and her suffering would end, but to allow her to linger on forever as she was now...

"Of course we won't leave her an immortal vegetable," Elle said impatiently when Edward explained Carlisle's objections. "If changing her doesn't fix her, I'll put her out of her misery myself."

"That's what he's afraid of. In her current state, she's beyond feeling pain, but Carlisle is afraid that even if the venom can't awaken her, it might restore just enough of her senses that...that if she had to die a vampire's death, she _would_ feel it."

Elle said nothing for a long moment as she imagined how that would feel, to be aware of her body burning but powerless to escape the flames, or even to scream so that the friends who thought they were doing her a favor would know they were hurting her... Then she gave her head a resolute shake, forcefully dispelling the horrific image. "But you don't know that for sure, do you?"

###

In the end, it was Alice who settled the matter; she had come to New York to help her sister search for Peter, then stayed to provide emotional support once Angela finally accepted that her son was gone, but she had kept tabs on Bella's situation too. "I can't see what will happen if one of us bites Bella," she told Carlisle, and he could tell by her clenched fists exactly how much that frustrated her, "but I do know it'll happen whether you're on board or not. If you say no, Elle will do it herself."

"Even knowing the potential consequences?"

"The key word there is 'potential' - she doesn't believe the worst-case scenario is very likely. She also doesn't have your uncompromising morality; she grew up without any friends, so she's very attached to the few she has, and she's just selfish enough to do whatever it takes to hold on to them...which leaves Edward caught in the middle."

That was something Carlisle hadn't considered, because even though Elle hadn't been ready to join his coven immediately after her transformation and therefore hadn't accepted his authority as coven leader, he had never found himself in direct opposition to her. He'd certainly never imagined a situation where Edward would be forced to choose between them - even when he had decided to live apart from the family with her for a while, it was with the understanding that the separation was temporary, and there had been no conflict. It wasn't as if the entire coven always stayed together anyway; everyone needed some alone time now and then.

"I don't know what he'll do if it comes down to a choice between you and her," Alice continued in a near-whisper. "He's trying not to think about it, hoping you'll resolve this disagreement peaceably. It's an impossible decision - you and Elle are the two people he loves most in the world, and he can't go either way without feeling like he's betraying one of you."

"Then I have no choice," the older vampire said wearily. "I won't put my son in that position. Besides, she may be right; perhaps I am being overly pessimistic."

"So you'll do it?"

Carlisle sighed, wondering if this would turn out to be the best or worst decision of his very long life. "Yes, I will attempt to make Bella Swan one of us."

Alice happily clapped her hands together, then her expression quickly grew somber again as she turned toward the bed holding the girl whose fate they had just been debating. It was after hours in the hospital, but of course Carlisle was able to get in to check on his patient whenever he wanted.

"Then we need to act fast, because she doesn't have much time left. Look at this." Carefully turning Bella onto her side, Alice undid the top tie on the back of her hospital gown and pulled the thin material aside, revealing the red, irritated skin covering Bella's bony shoulder blades - pressure ulcers, or bedsores, caused by the resulting friction from all the times she had been moved from her bed to a stretcher so they could cart her away for yet another useless test. "In a few days, these sores will get infected with MRSA. Her doctors will try to treat it, only we all know Bella has the worst luck of anyone on the planet, so the drugs won't take, and the infection will cause necrosis in the surrounding tissue that will spread to her organs. She'll die in two weeks, unless her parents end it sooner when they realize how bad the infection is."

"And do you have a plan to extract her from this hospital before it reaches that point?" Carlisle suspected she did; this was clearly the outcome she had hoped for, and he knew her penchant for meticulous preparations.

She flashed him a brilliant, slightly devious smile. "You know it. Just taking her would be complicated with all this security, so I need you to talk her parents into transferring her to a private long-term care facility I've fabricated."

"You've already laid the groundwork? How did you know I would agree when I didn't know myself until five minutes ago?"

Alice shrugged. "There are some things I don't need a vision to tell me. I knew that when it came down to it, you wouldn't be able to let her die if there was any chance at all of saving her."

 **The next chapter will also focus on Bella, and then we'll catch up with Peter in chapter 4.**


	3. The Lazarus Effect

**I'm so sorry it took me so long to get this chapter out; I should've finished it days ago, but I've been distracted because things keep breaking in my house, and it's absurdly difficult to get repairmen out to fix them, and when they come they don't have the right parts, and it's a huge pain in the butt. I also had to do a little research to make the medical information as accurate as possible (except for the part where Bella's infection is cured by vampire venom, of course).**

 **Warning: this chapter has kind of a downer ending.**

Chapter 3: The Lazarus Effect

Persuading Charlie and Renée to transfer Bella turned out to be almost laughably easy. Of course they researched Alice's fake clinic extensively, but thanks to her painstaking attention to detail in creating documentation, they found plenty of information that, along with Carlisle's recommendation, convinced them that their daughter would receive the best possible care at a much lower cost than what they were currently paying to keep her in the hospital. They even met with the clinic's director (played by Jasper, who had disguised himself so thoroughly with temporary hair dye and face-altering prosthetics that Charlie never felt so much as a glimmer of recognition despite having lived in the same town as him for years) and his caring, compassionate manner instantly sealed the deal.

After that, the only thing left to do was to take Bella away, which was where Edward and Elle came in, playing the part of the medical transport team. Neither of Bella's parents had ever seen Elle before, so she did all the talking while Edward, his face hidden behind a surgical mask and scrub cap, prepared Bella for her trip.

Charlie and Renée followed as they wheeled her out of the hospital and then, much to Elle's annoyance, insisted on saying a long, tearful goodbye before allowing them to load up their 'patient' and get going. Sensing that she was about to say something insensitive, Edward pulled her away. "Let them have their moment, Elle. They don't know it yet, but this is the last time they'll ever see their daughter."

There seemed to be something more on his mind, something he was obviously reluctant to say out loud - probably something about how Elle's discomfort at the emotional display most likely stemmed from her troubled relationship with her own parents, and he was probably right, but that wasn't a conversation she felt like having at the moment. "Whatever you're thinking, stop it," she snapped. "I just want this to be over with so I can get out of these hideous scrubs."

###

Given the distance they had to travel - the Cullens were currently living in a particularly mountainous and isolated part of Colorado - they had decided that making the trip in a private ambulance would take too long and acquired a helicopter instead, which got them to their destination in a fraction of the time it would have taken by road. The rest of the family was already gathered outside, waiting for them; as soon as they touched down, the cargo bay door slid open and Carlisle climbed inside to check on Bella. "How is she?"

"Not well," Edward told him, his mouth set in a grim line. "The infection has set in just as Alice predicted - we're lucky the abscesses didn't appear until we'd gotten her out of the hospital, or her parents would never have let us move her. I think we had better get to work on her right away."

Carlisle agreed after performing a cursory examination, and they quickly brought Bella and her life support equipment into the house.

"So who gets to do the honors?" Elle asked once they had her situated.

"Well, you are her closest friend, and the one who argued in favor of changing her – per vampire custom, it should be you," Esme told her.

"Me?" She could see how it made sense for it to be her, and she had intended to try changing Bella herself if Carlisle had refused to cooperate, but somehow she hadn't thought much about what it would be like to actually do the deed. She took a step toward the hospital bed where Bella was laid out, then stopped and looked uncertainly at Edward. "Do I just go for the neck, like in the movies?"

"That's one way to do it," Carlisle answered for him, "but with Bella's unique situation, I think a more delicate approach is in order." He moved toward her, holding up a syringe with a very long needle.

Elle bared her teeth, electricity crackling at her fingertips – the logical part of her knew needles couldn't hurt her anymore, but the sight of it triggered flashbacks to her childhood in the labs at Primatech, which sent logic straight out the window.

Carlisle hastily backed off. "It might be better if you do it," he suggested, handing the syringe to Edward.

She eyed the needle warily as he approached, but the sparks arcing between her fingers fizzled out; Edward decided to take that as a good sign. "What's that for?"

"I'm going to use it to aspirate your venom."

"What?"

"Open your mouth, please." He inserted the tip of the needle under her tongue, drew out the venom that had pooled there, and injected it into Bella's carotid and vertebral arteries.

"Why'd you do that?"

"This will give the venom more time to circulate through her brain before spreading to the rest of her body and hopefully increase the chances of repairing whatever was damaged," Carlisle explained.

"I guess that makes sense. So what happens now?"

"Now we wait," Edward told her.

"Have fun with that," Rosalie said brightly, smirking at the look of dismay on Elle's face. "I'll be thinking of you while Emmett and I stage the final act of our cover story." They couldn't have Charlie and Renée trying to visit Bella later, so they had concocted a plan to make it appear that the helicopter had crashed en route to the clinic, killing everyone onboard.

"We'll burn the whole thing up so there won't be much evidence for the humans to find," Emmett said enthusiastically. "It's gonna be awesome! We just need some of Bella's DNA to plant at the scene..."

"Here you go," Alice chirped as she handed over three vials containing the samples of Bella's blood, hair, and skin cells she had collected. "Knock yourselves out."

"I wish," Elle muttered. She was glad Rosalie was leaving - it made no difference to her whether Emmett was there or not since he usually didn't bother her as long as she wasn't electrocuting his wife - but that still left Carlisle, Esme, Alice, and Jasper...and no Bella to keep them busy with her wacky newborn antics for at least three days. In fact, taking Bella's unique situation into account, Edward had predicted that her change might be slower than average - apparently, the longest it had ever taken anyone to turn into a vampire was five days. _Five days of playing house in the middle of nowhere with the Addams Family..._

"I'm going hunting," she announced at regular volume while avoiding eye contact with her mate, certain he would be disappointed that she didn't want to stay and try for some quality time with the family she still couldn't quite think of as hers. _Maybe another time, babe._

"Are you sure you need to?" Alice asked, peering into her face. "Your eyes don't look that dark."

"Yeah, but Central Park isn't exactly ideal hunting ground - nothing bigger than a chipmunk. I need some real food."

"Don't go too far, please," Esme requested. "We'll need you here when Bella wakes up."

Elle was tempted to reply with her customary snark, but then she caught a glimpse of Edward out of the corner of her eye, watching her anxiously, and remembered that she had promised to be on her best behavior. "Okay," she agreed in a tone that was, if not exactly friendly, at least civil. "I'll just head up into the pass, grab a couple of mountain goats, and be back in three days tops."

"Thank you, dear." Esme gave her a tentative smile which, after a second's hesitation, Elle returned.

"I think she's warming up to us," Jasper remarked, though he waited until she was out of earshot before saying it just in case he was wrong.

 _2 days later_

Edward and Carlisle were engaged in some kind of heated debate when Elle returned, though they fell silent when they heard her coming. Frowning, she picked up her pace, her fingers and toes leaving little indentations in the sheer rock face as she climbed down the last hundred yards; then she leaped across a small chasm to the wooden railing enclosing the deck that wrapped around the entire house and entered what had temporarily become Bella's room through a pair of French doors. "What's up, guys? Any signs of life yet?"

Before either of them could speak, Bella herself answered Elle's question with a soft choking noise which was immediately followed by a chorus of blaring alarms from several of her monitors. "What's happening to her?!"

"Move!" Edward snatched Elle out of Carlisle's path as he raced over to check Bella's airway.

"There's no obstruction... I think she's trying to breathe on her own, but the tube's in the way - Edward-"

He was already there before Carlisle finished voicing his request for assistance, holding Bella's head while the doctor removed her breathing tube. There was a loud whooshing sound, and Bella's chest deflated as the last of the pumped-in air left her lungs - the heart monitor's frantic beeping faltered, giving way to a single flat tone...

"Dammit, she's flatlining!"

"Elle, you may have to shock her-"

"Come on, Bella, _breathe_!"

...Then her chest slowly rose again as she took her first unaided breath in months. The monitor stopped droning, and after a moment resumed a steady rhythm. Everyone in the house breathed a sigh of relief.

"I _knew_ she'd be off life support soon!" Alice exclaimed as she breezed into the room. "See, she really is getting better!"

"Yes, but the fact that she can breathe on her own merely proves that her most basic brain functions are returning," Carlisle said wearily, with the air of a man repeating himself for the umpteenth time, which in fact he was. Exactly what was happening inside Bella's head had been the subject of near-constant discussion in the Cullen household for the last two days, though all they could do was speculate - by the time the venom crossed the blood-brain barrier, her skull had hardened enough that the EEG machine Carlisle had gone to a great deal of trouble to procure was useless, and Alice's visions of her were frustratingly sketchy. "If we give her more venom now to accelerate the change, there's still a chance that she could end up in a permanent vegetative state."

"It's a chance we'll have to take," Alice told him. "Show him, Edward."

"Show him what?" Elle demanded, pushing in for a closer look.

Edward turned Bella onto her stomach and opened the back of her hospital gown, revealing that, in addition to the angry red sores on her shoulder blades, her entire back was now covered in what looked like a giant bruise, except that bruises didn't usually carry a faint whiff of the sickly sweet stench of decay. Carlisle's eyes widened, and then a look of deep dismay came over his face.

"What is it?" Elle asked, a little louder than necessary. "Where'd that bruise come from, and why does it stink?"

"It's not a bruise," Edward explained, "it's the start of necrotizing fasciitis." At Elle's blank look, he added, "More commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria."

"That sounds bad. So the infection's getting worse?"

"I'm afraid so. Carlisle and I had hoped the antibiotics would buy her a little more time-"

Elle didn't wait for him to say any more; snatching up Bella's hand, she bit deep into the comatose girl's wrist and the crook of her elbow, then repeated the process with her other arm. Carlisle also insisted on giving her another injection in the arteries that supplied blood to her brain, flooding the damaged organ with venom again; then he disconnected the rest of her feeding tubes, IVs, catheter, and the various monitors, saying that with the amount of venom now circulating through her bloodstream, there was no need to feed or medicate her any longer.

"So if she doesn't need to stay hooked up to all those machines anymore, does that mean I can finally give her a bath and put her in some decent clothes?" Alice asked eagerly.

Carlisle agreed that there was no reason not to move her now, and Alice happily whisked her oblivious victim away for a makeover. The doctor also left the room, having done all he could for his patient at the moment.

"Alone at last," Edward sighed, sliding an arm around Elle's waist and leading her out onto the deck, under the stars. "Did you enjoy your hunt?"

She glanced up at his face, wondering if the question was leading into some admonition for not sticking around. "Sure. Would've been better with you, though."

"I'm glad you had a good time - and I'm not upset with you. In the time we've been together, I've realized it's not in your nature to be tied down completely...so even though you'll miss me when we're apart, I know this probably won't be the last time you need to be alone for a while."

"And you're okay with that?" Elle asked hesitantly.

"I'm working on it," he replied with his trademark crooked smile. "I've spoken to my family about it, and they told me that while being away from your mate is always difficult, it does get a little easier after the first hundred years or so. Besides, no matter how often you leave, you always come back."

###

Things seemed to happen very fast after that, the venom spreading rapidly through Bella's ravaged body until, thirty-six hours later, Carlisle announced that her transformation was almost complete. The whole family gathered in her room - including Emmett and Rosalie, who had come home the day before - and waited anxiously as her heart thundered through its last frantic, pounding beats and finally stopped...and then...

Nothing. Bella lay perfectly still, without even a flutter of her lashes or a twitch of her fingers to hint at any return to consciousness.

"It didn't work?" Elle asked in a tone of mixed disbelief and disappointment. "Everything we did - it didn't help at all?"

"I'm so sorry, Carlisle," Esme murmured, squeezing her husband's hand. "I know you tried your best to save her."

Carlisle sighed. "I guess I'd better see if there's any improvement," he said without much hope. Picking up the penlight he used to check her pupils' reactivity to light, he walked over to her resting place with an uncharacteristically slow, heavy step. He reached out to peel back an eyelid...

With his fingertips mere centimeters away, her arm suddenly shot out, knocking Carlisle's hand away from her face as her eyes flew open. Taking note of everyone's positions in less time than it took a human to blink, Bella threw herself off the bed and into the only unoccupied corner with a single graceful twist of her body. Her eyes darted everywhere, seemingly without taking anything in, though her gaze did linger on Elle for a brief moment when her friend took a step toward her.

"Bella? Are you all right?"

"She's totally disoriented," Jasper answered, clutching his head as he fought through the confusion and fear he was picking up from her.

"Of course," Edward murmured. "The last thing she remembers is being on Kirby Plaza with Peter."

 _Kirby Plaza...Peter..._ Those names stirred something in Bella's clouded memory; she remembered the plaza, the fountain with its orange spiral sculpture, and Peter - how could she have forgotten him, even for a second? - telling her he loved her right before the world was swallowed up by a blinding white light. _The explosion! Guess that means I didn't stop it..._

She looked around, noticing again how bright and vibrant her surroundings were, how her senses seemed alive as never before, and decided this must be heaven, although she wasn't sure how she'd ended up there after letting millions of people die - and Elle and Edward were there too. She felt bad that they hadn't been able to get out in time, but she couldn't understand what the rest of Edward's family was doing in the hereafter when they hadn't been anywhere near New York, and most importantly, where was Peter?

Realizing that Elle was talking to her, she forced herself to tune out her racing thoughts and the hundreds of stimuli flooding her senses and pay attention. "Your shield kept the city safe when Peter exploded, but holding back that much power fried your brain and left you a vegetable, so we had to change you - it was the only way to fix you. You're one of us now."

These revelations set Bella's head spinning again. She felt a brief surge of relief that she had managed to save New York City after all, which quickly gave way to shock when Elle got to the part where she was now a vampire. She'd known such a conversion was possible, of course, but she had never considered undergoing it herself, even as a lifesaving measure. Somehow, she had never imagined that she would end up in a situation where her only options were death or vampirism, let alone one where she wouldn't be able to make the choice herself, and she supposed coming to terms with her current condition would take some time, but she would deal with that after she found out what had happened to Peter. Until she knew he was all right, nothing else seemed terribly important.

When Bella showed no visible reaction to her story, Elle turned to Jasper and asked, "Can you tell if any of this is sinking in?"

"I think so. You've got her attention, but mostly she feels...impatient? Her interest spiked earlier when Edward mentioned Peter; I think she wants to know about him."

Everyone's faces fell, and Emmett muttered, "Oh man, this is gonna be bad."

Bella's gaze flicked from one grim expression to another, her anxiety mounting until Elle finally said, in a strangely subdued voice, "I'm sorry, Bella... He didn't make it. It's been almost three months since the explosion, and we never found him."

Her words hit Bella like a physical blow, and this time no one needed an empath to tell them how she was feeling as her knees buckled and she landed in a heap on the floor, shaking her head in denial. Peter couldn't be gone - sure, he'd exploded, but he could heal himself, he'd done it before... _For a broken ankle,_ a voice in her head reminded her. _That's a little different. And Elle said it's been three months; if he'd survived, he would've come back by now. He wouldn't just let everyone think he...disappeared._ There was no getting around it then - Peter was dead. Bella's hands covered her face, and she uttered the first sound she'd made since her awakening: an earsplitting, hair-raising shriek that seemed to go on forever.

Overwhelmed by the tidal wave of devastation and despair that had crashed over him when Bella first heard the news, Jasper had already jumped out the window, plunging into the sheer drop off the west side of their house; now the rest of them followed suit, hands over their ears. "What the hell was that?" Rosalie demanded when they had all landed at the base of the mountain. "I think she punctured one of my eardrums! Jasper, do you have any idea what's wrong with her?"

"Yes, but I wish I didn't," Jasper said shakily. "What she's feeling right now - I experienced it all too often in the wars...every time someone lost their mate."

There were gasps of horror and sympathy all around, and Alice wrapped Jasper in a comforting embrace.

"Her mate?" Carlisle turned a sharp look on Elle. "Did you know about this when you asked me to change her?"

"No! I knew _he_ loved _her_ , but I didn't know she felt the same way!"

"I don't think Bella knew herself," Edward added. "It's an unfortunately common occurrence - people don't realize what they have until they lose it."

"But how does it work with her only having known him as a human?" Emmett wondered out loud. "Since they weren't together when she became a vampire, does that mean she can move on?"

No one knew the answer to that, but Esme and Carlisle eventually decided that she needed time to grieve, and should be left alone until she chose to join them outside. "After all, she'll have to come out soon. As a newborn, she can't wait too long to hunt."

###

Hours passed, the sunny day faded into twilight, and still there was no sign of Bella. At last, they decided to go back inside and check on her, and found her exactly where they'd left her, huddled in a corner. She didn't look up when they entered the room.

"Hey, Bella," Elle said softly, edging closer while the others hung back, watching. "You must be pretty thirsty by now, huh? If you'll get up, we can go hunting, find you something tasty."

No response.

"Look, I'm sorry about Peter; I had no idea you were in love with him, but you can't just sit here forever. You need blood. Get up!" Bella still wouldn't move, so Elle tried tugging at her arm, to no avail. "Don't make me zap you." Her threat also failed to produce a reaction, and Elle's hand dropped back to her side as she turned away. "Well, I tried everything short of actually sending a few hundred volts through her," she reported to the silent audience hovering just outside the doorway, "but she won't budge."

Next they tried sending Jasper in to lift Bella's mood, but that didn't work either; his power seemed to have no effect on her, and he quickly fled the room. "Couldn't take all that pain...sorry...but why couldn't I make her feel better?"

"I've never been able to hear her thoughts," Edward said reassuringly. "She's naturally resistant to all mental influences."

Jasper didn't look reassured. "My gift isn't mental, though - it actually affects the nervous system. Alice's talent doesn't work inside the mind either, and she hasn't been getting a clear picture of Bella's future lately."

"Well, if the change enhanced the abilities Bella already possessed - and remember, she was strong enough to contain a nuclear explosion _as a human_ \- she may be immune to all our powers now."

This statement prompted a few uneasy glances toward the closed door separating them from Bella, as they contemplated exactly what the creature they had created might be capable of.

"Not to interrupt this fascinating scientific discussion," Elle interjected impatiently, "but what are we going to do about feeding her?"

It was Emmett who proposed a solution to that problem: if Bella wouldn't hunt, they would have to bring the blood to her. When they presented her with a cup of freshly harvested lynx blood, however, she merely sniffed at it before turning her head away. They subsequently tried tempting her with blood from a gray wolf, a black bear, a grizzly bear, a bobcat, and even a mule deer, but she showed no interest in any of their offerings; after the third try, she didn't even glance up anymore when they approached her.

Everyone was confounded and disturbed by her behavior, but none more so than Jasper. "I don't understand it! I've never seen a newborn who won't hunt! And one who won't drink even when you're holding blood right under her nose - it's downright unnatural. I thought I was an expert on newborns, but I'm officially at the end of my rope with this one."

"Well," Carlisle said with a certain amount of reluctance, "there is one more thing we might try. When I was preparing for her arrival, it occurred to me that she might need transfusions to complete the change...so I acquired a stock of human blood." There was dead silence as seven pairs of wide golden eyes stared at him. "Ordinarily, giving her a taste for humans at this early stage of her development is the last thing I'd want to do, but under the circumstances, I don't see any other options."

"You're right, of course," Esme assured him. "She needs sustenance, and she's refused everything else."

So they filled a mug with human blood, warmed it in the microwave, and took it in to her; this time, Bella perked up a little, raising her head and inhaling the warm, enticing aroma that wiped everything else from her mind - but only for a moment. Then she remembered that Peter was dead, and the knowledge crushed her all over again. Her face crumpled, and she buried her head between her drawn-up knees just before a quiet sob escaped her.

Elle, Carlisle, and Edward all gaped at her in amazement, but she never looked up, and eventually they had no choice but to leave, taking the rejected blood, which had started to congeal in its mug, with them.

Jasper was fit to be tied when he heard about their latest failure. "There must be something wrong with her, some part of her brain that didn't heal - it's the only explanation for a newborn vampire with no appetite at all."

###

In her room on the other side of the house, Bella snorted softly. Jasper was wrong; of course she was thirsty, it was just that the burning in her throat seemed insignificant compared to the agony that twisted her insides every time she recalled something Peter had said to her, or pictured him smiling at her, and realized she would never hear his voice or see his face again. With him gone, her thirst didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.


	4. Forget Me Not

**I hope all my American readers had a great Thanksgiving, and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to everyone.**

Chapter 4: Forget Me Not

 _Primatech facility, Hartsdale, NY - the night of the explosion_

Upon arriving at the Company's main headquarters, Peter was taken to a small room empty of all but the most basic necessities. Under different circumstances, he might have questioned why his accommodations looked so much like a prison cell, but in his current frame of mind he couldn't have cared less. He simply took the pills Linderman gave him and flopped down on the hard, narrow bed, not even noticing when Linderman locked him in.

The next day, his host took him to the lab to test the drug's effects. "Just try moving this pen across the table, please."

Peter stared at the pen, concentrated every fiber of his being on moving it...and nothing happened. "Great, your cure works. Can you get to work on Bella now?"

"Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, Peter," Linderman said condescendingly while the scientist conducting the tests scribbled on her clipboard. "Our current formula only lasts as long as our subjects take the pills regularly; we'll need to create something permanent before we can call this project a success and move on to other pursuits. Now, if you don't mind, we still have a few more tests to do..."

These tests involved taking several blood samples - the pinprick wounds left by the needle didn't automatically heal, proving that the abilities not under his conscious control were suppressed as well - after which Linderman took Peter back to his cell, then returned to his office to find a worried-looking shapeshifter waiting for him. "Candice? I thought I told you to stay at the hospital and keep an eye on our friend, Miss Swan."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Linderman - I was doing what you asked, but then Elle and her boyfriend showed up with the head of their coven, the doctor. Between the three of them, they never left her alone-"

"That doesn't explain why you decided to abandon your assignment," Linderman interrupted, giving her a disapproving frown.

"I was afraid the telepath would figure out it was me if I hung around too long, and I was scared, okay? The last time I ran into Elle, the crazy bitch almost put my eyes out!"

"That would have been most unfortunate, but not irreparable."

This statement was met with an incredulous look from his most devoted employee. As brilliant as Candice thought Linderman was, in this instance she felt that he was missing the point - even if she could be healed later, that didn't mean she wanted her eyeballs gouged or burned out in the first place.

"The Cullens' presence complicates things," Linderman continued, "but it's not a significant setback. Peter's being perfectly cooperative; if that changes, I'm sure we can find a way of getting to her."

"In the hospital, sure. What if they take her somewhere else?"

"She's getting the very best care right where she is," Linderman replied impatiently. "There's no reason to move her. Besides, Peter has no way of knowing if they do, so threatening her should remain an effective means of controlling him as long as he doesn't require proof that we really do have access to the girl." He didn't think that was very likely; based on what Angela had told him about her younger son, Peter didn't seem that sharp.

###

Peter, meanwhile, was sitting on his bed, staring blankly at the opposite wall, when a seemingly disembodied voice spoke to him. "Hello?"

"Who said that?"

"Me." This time he was able to determine that the voice was coming from an air vent. "Your next door neighbor. I'm glad they finally put someone on the other side of my wall; you don't know how long it's been since I've had another human being to talk to."

"Sorry, I'm not feeling very chatty right now."

He refused to say anything more, and his neighbor soon gave up trying to engage him in conversation, at least temporarily. He tried again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Sometimes Peter gave short responses, sometimes he asked for peace and quiet, mostly he said nothing at all, but it didn't matter. Nothing deterred the chatterbox in the next cell for long.

"You know," he said one day, "it's been a month, and you still haven't told me your name."

"Please, I just want to be left alone." Peter was in no mood to indulge him today; he knew exactly how long it had been, and Linderman still hadn't found a way to help Bella. Now he was starting to worry about what kind of shape she would be in if she ever did wake up. _When,_ he corrected himself. _When she wakes up, not if._

"Well, you've come to the right place. I have to warn you, though, it does get a bit old, even for someone as depressed as you."

"What makes you think I'm depressed?" Peter demanded. He was, of course, but the man's presumption was still annoying. "You don't know anything about me."

"I might know more than you think. Let me guess, you were living a perfectly ordinary life, until one day you discovered you could do something incredible. I bet it was wonderful at first; you thought you must've been given this gift for a reason, that you were destined for greatness - perhaps you even thought you could save the world. Then, tragically, you realized you were dangerous."

Peter lifted his head and frowned at the wall separating him from the other man, whose deductions had hit much too close to home. _How could he know all that? Unless maybe it happened to him too..._

"Why don't you talk to me after a decade?" his neighbor went on. "Actually, talk to me after three."

"If they want to leave me in here forever, that's fine by me." It wasn't like he didn't deserve it, and even if Bella was healed, he doubted she would ever want to see him again.

"You've been through something awful, haven't you? I'm sorry."

He sounded sincere, and at long last, Peter relented. "I'm Peter."

"Hello, Peter, nice to meet you. I'm Adam."

###

Peter and Adam struck up a sort of friendship over the next three months, at least as much as was possible for two people who never saw each other face to face, and Adam soon began dropping hints that Linderman, and the Company in general, weren't trustworthy. By that point, Peter was starting to lose patience with his captors anyway, and when Adam revealed that Primatech had been days away from perfecting their cure since his arrival thirty years ago, Peter decided it was time to confront Linderman.

"How much are you really working on this cure?" he demanded during their next meeting. "I thought you were trying to come up with something permanent, but in all the time I've been here you've just had me taking the same old pills."

"Scientific progress doesn't happen overnight, you know that."

"What I know is that I agreed to let you test your cure on me in exchange for you finding a way to fix Bella's brain damage, and so far I haven't seen you following through on your end of the deal."

Linderman's expression hardened, his tone shifting from placatory to threatening. "Careful, Peter. I'll admit healing your little friend isn't my highest priority - the girl was quite a thorn in my side, after all - but I haven't harmed her either. However, if you're going to start being difficult...well, it would be a shame if her life support were to malfunction, wouldn't it?"

"You can't-"

"I assure you I can." This was a lie, since Cullens had spirited Bella out of the hospital, placing her well beyond his reach, but thanks to his frequent dealings with the criminal underbelly of Las Vegas - a distasteful enterprise, to be sure, but such a convenient way of amassing the monetary resources he needed to aid the greater good - he was an expert in the art of bluffing. "Do you remember the woman you met on Kirby Plaza, Niki? Her son has the ability to control technology, and his father can walk through walls; the family is rather deeply indebted to me, and they would have no trouble at all in getting to Miss Swan and tampering with the machines that are keeping her alive. In the unlikely event that they were caught, our Haitian friend could easily take care of any witnesses. Of course, I take no pleasure in the murder of a defenseless girl - I won't touch her unless you force my hand. You don't want to be responsible for any further harm coming to her, do you?"

Peter stared at him, wondering why he had ever believed the man had good intentions - hadn't Nathan told him often enough what a crook Linderman was? Obviously he had let his desperation to undo the harm he had caused cloud his judgment, and had ended up in an even bigger mess; he was no closer to reviving Bella, and now he couldn't even be there to protect her from Linderman's assassins. He'd failed her again.

Meanwhile, Linderman was still watching him, gauging the effect of his threat as he waited for an answer. "Do you, Peter?"

"No, of course not. I won't give you any more trouble, just leave her alone."

"Gladly. You see how much easier things are when we all behave reasonably? Now, I have other matters to attend to, so Candice will show you back to your room."

Peter would have rolled his eyes at Linderman's insistence on maintaining his veneer of civility by calling it a room instead of a cell - Adam was right, this place really was a prison, and the fact that he wasn't allowed to go anywhere unsupervised only served to emphasize that - but the anger that surged through him at the name Linderman had just mentioned made him forget all that. "Candice?!" He whirled around, and sure enough, there stood the illusionist who had taken on Bella's form in an attempt to make it look like she had deserted him, wearing a smug grin.

"Hiya, Pete."

He brushed past her without responding, suddenly eager to escape back into the solitude of his cell. Unfortunately, she effortlessly kept pace with him. "Not thrilled to see me, huh? Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I was just doing my job."

"And you sure enjoyed it. You get a kick out of messing with people's heads, don't you?" Peter snapped. "You weren't very convincing, though."

"Okay, so I got her shoes wrong, big deal. It wouldn't have mattered if Elle wasn't so damn nitpicky, but I can do better. Just watch." Before he could explain that it was her behavior that had given her away rather than her footwear, she closed her eyes in concentration and transformed herself into Bella's double. Her disguise was flawless this time, right down to the worn-out sneakers, but Peter wasn't impressed.

"Change back," he ordered in a low, warning tone, " _now_."

"Why? Except for the clothes, it's really not so bad being her." She changed the jeans and t-shirt Bella favored into something more to her liking, stopping to admire her reflection in an empty cell's observation window. "Hmm, not bad. There might even be something here I can use if I ever feel like designing myself a new face."

Shaking his head in disgust, Peter wrenched open the door to his cell and hurried inside, but Candice followed, much to his dismay. "Why don't you just leave me alone? Don't you have something better to do?"

"Not really. Sylar was supposed to be my next assignment, but you and the electric bitch took him out, so I'm just hanging around here for now."

"Then go hang around somewhere else."

"What's your problem? Aren't you glad to see your precious Bella again?"

"You're not her."

"But I look like her, which is probably as close as you'll ever get to having her back."

"You don't get it, do you? You think I love Bella because of the way she _looks_? That doesn't matter to me-"

"It's _all_ that matters," Candice interjected bitterly. "Guys like you never look twice at any girl who isn't rail-thin and gorgeous."

Remembering Elle's remarks about how Candice's usual appearance was just another illusion and her taunts about the shapeshifter's true form, Peter felt an unexpected stab of sympathy for the woman, though it was somewhat muted by the fact that she was still wearing Bella's face like a cheap Halloween mask. "Look, I'm sorry for whatever happened to you, but you don't know anything about me. Whatever you're trying to prove with this facade you've created for yourself, leave me out of it, and don't turn into Bella again. You may be able to copy her face, but you'll never be like her; she was willing to risk her life to save people she didn't even know, to save the world, and you can't fake that."

Candice changed back into her normal self, looking furious. "Whatever! You could've had way more fun with me than you ever did with her, but hey, it's your loss, pal." She stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Adam piped up as soon as she was out of earshot. "You've been holding out on me, Peter - you never mentioned a girlfriend." When Peter didn't respond, Adam quickly began putting things together. "Oh, I see. She was in the wrong place when you found out about the downside to your abilities, wasn't she? Did you hurt her?"

"Yes." With that one little word, the whole story came pouring out. He'd thought talking about it would hurt, which was why he hadn't told Adam anything about Bella before, but Linderman and Candice had already done such a thorough job of rubbing salt in the wound that it hardly mattered now.

Adam listened sympathetically, then said, "Well, the good news is that you don't need Linderman. My blood has healing powers; just a few drops should have your girl up and about in no time. All you need to do is get me out of here."

Peter's initial reaction was skepticism - after all, recent events had shown him that if something sounded too good to be true, it probably was, and the odds that he'd just happened to stumble across someone who had exactly what he needed must be astronomical - but unlike Linderman, Adam was his friend. Surely he could trust him. Besides, he was planning on escaping anyway, and he saw no harm in taking Adam with him; even if it turned out the man was lying about his abilities, he didn't deserve to be left in this hellhole. "Okay, but first I need to get my powers back."

That turned out to be easy, since the Company workers who delivered his daily dose of pills never stuck around to make sure he took them, even after he confronted Linderman; apparently the old man believed his threats would be enough to keep Peter in line. His telepathy returned after two days without the pills, just a faint whisper in the back of his mind at first, but three days later it was back in full force, and he decided it was time to try accessing his more 'active' powers. Linderman usually checked up on him about once a week, so he didn't dare delay any longer.

He could have blasted the door to his cell off its hinges, but that would almost certainly set off some kind of alarm; luckily, he had picked up the ability to phase through solid objects during his brief encounter with Niki Sanders' husband on Kirby Plaza, though he hadn't realized it at the time. Silently thanking Linderman for carelessly giving away that information, he stepped through the wall into the adjacent cell where Adam was waiting for him.

"Hello, Peter. It's nice to finally meet you."

###

Peter made a quick stop at his apartment to collect his ATM and credit cards, figuring he would need the money if he and Bella had to go on the run, then teleported himself and Adam to the hospital where he'd left her, only to find her bed empty. "Looks like we're too late," Adam observed. "I'm sorry-"

"No! She has to be here somewhere; they just moved her, that's all."

"Why would they do that? I'm sorry, but you know as well as I that it's far more likely her parents pulled the plug on her, and we can't afford to waste time searching the whole hospital for someone who isn't here. The Company will know we've escaped by now, and this is the first place they'll look for you."

Peter ignored him, storming out of the deserted room and grabbing the first hospital worker he came across. "The girl who was in that room – Bella Swan – where is she?!"

The orderly blinked at him, befuddled. "The brain dead girl? Honey, she was transferred out of here _weeks_ ago."

"Transferred? But she was still alive?"

"If you can call it living. Didn't look like she would last much longer, poor thing."

Peter released the woman and ran off down the hall with a frustrated Adam trailing after him. "Now where are you going?"

"To find a computer!"

Using Micah's power, he hacked into the hospital's records and discovered she'd been taken to a private facility, but before he could read all the details, Adam tugged on his sleeve and pointed to a security monitor feed. "They're here."

"I just need one more minute-"

But Adam seized his arm and forcefully turned him away from the screen. "We don't _have_ another minute! If they catch us, we'll be right back in our cells and you'll have no chance of helping her then!"

Reluctantly conceding the point, Peter tried to teleport out, but it didn't work.

"Damn, they must've brought the Haitian." Thinking fast, Adam suggested they split up, ostensibly to confuse their pursuers, though his true motives were more self-serving – the Haitian would naturally go after Peter, whose powers were much more formidable, and he was the only one Adam was really worried about since his presence would allow Adam to be knocked out or otherwise incapacitated. With his centuries of experience, he was confident he could handle anyone else they sent after him. It was a shame he had to sacrifice such a potentially useful ally as Peter, but avoiding capture was the most important thing right now; he could always find someone else to aid in his plans for revenge later.

###

The Haitian chased Peter several blocks before finally cornering him in a shipping yard. Once he realized he had nowhere left to run, Peter turned around and braced himself for a fight. "If you take me back, I'll just keep escaping," he warned as the Haitian approached. "I'll never let Linderman get his hands on Bella again!"

The other man responded with a sad shake of his head; it had never occurred to Linderman to wonder why the Cullens had stolen Bella from her parents, but the Haitian had no doubt in his mind that they did it so they could attempt to turn her into another undead abomination like themselves, as they had done to poor Elle. He could only hope she was too far gone for the evil spirits that gave the vampires their unholy semblance of life to take hold in her.

"I'm afraid Bella Swan is lost to you," he said gently, trying to soften the blow as much as he could. "You must forget her and start a new life."

"Forget her?" Peter repeated incredulously. "I could never do that even if I wanted to."

"Then it seems I must help you." Lunging forward, he clamped a hand over Peter's forehead.

The empath cried out in shock and pain as he felt his mind being invaded and struggled to break through the Haitian's psychic lead blanket so he could access Bella's shield, but it felt like his skull was being hollowed out…then, to his horror, his memories began disappearing, the white-hot fire burning through every synapse of his brain consuming everything in its path. Suddenly he couldn't recall Nathan's face…but who was Nathan? Peter tried to remind himself that Nathan was his brother, then in the next second forgot he had a brother. One by one, everyone he'd ever known was erased – his mother, father, nephews, Claire, all the people he knew from his former job…Bella.

 _No! I can't forget her – I have to save her! I have to get back to her. I have to remember… I have to…_ As his memories of her started to slip away like water through his fingers, he made one last desperate effort to fight the Haitian's power, to hold on to something, anything, that would help him find his way back to her…

 _Cork, Ireland – 1 week later_

"You have to remember something, anything. A name, a face…"

Peter frowned at the curly-haired brunette who was washing blood off his face, feeling exasperated – in the past hour, he'd woken up to find himself handcuffed inside a cargo container, got beaten up by a group of Irish gangsters who'd expected to find a shipment of iPods in said container and weren't pleased to discover him instead, then was hauled off to some pub and tied to a chair. While all that was happening, he'd insisted repeatedly that he didn't know how he came to be there - in fact, he had no memory at all of his life prior to that point. Why wouldn't they believe him? Did they think he'd _wanted_ to be locked in a big metal box where he could easily have starved or suffocated?

Still, he racked his brain one more time, hoping against hope that he might be able to come up with something now that he wasn't being punched, kicked, or hit with a bat…and, to his astonishment, a single scrap of information floated up out of the void. "Hey, wait…I do remember a name!" he said excitedly. Then his face fell. "I'm pretty sure it's not mine, though. I don't look like a Bella, do I?"


	5. Haunted

**Warning: this chapter may be depressing, since it deals with Bella handling (or rather,** **not** **handling) her grief over Peter's supposed death in an extremely unhealthy way. I'm sorry for all the angst, and I promise it won't last forever.**

Chapter 5: Haunted

"No, I can't say you do," the woman agreed. "Who's Bella?"

"I don't know!" Peter snapped, his frustration returning at full force. "It feels like I _should_ – it's like when you're trying to think of a word, and it's right on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't spit it out, you know? I have no idea what she looks like or how I knew her or where we might've met - hell, I can't even remember being anywhere in my whole life other than that box... I don't know anything, except her name."

"Well, I'm Caitlin. At least now you know that much." She finished cleaning his face with gentle, efficient movements, but whatever she saw underneath all the blood shattered her composure, causing her to gasp and her eyes to widen to the size of saucers.

"What's wrong?" Peter demanded, almost dreading her answer; what if the men who'd brought him here had completely smashed his face in? It didn't feel like they had - in fact, he wasn't even sore, which seemed very strange considering the brutal beating he'd taken less than an hour ago, but maybe he was hurt so badly that the pain receptors in his brain simply couldn't process it anymore.

"I've wrung out a fair bit of your blood just now," Caitlin replied, sounding unnerved, "but you don't have a mark on you."

Peter was just as baffled by this development as she was - though grateful, of course - but when she left him alone, he found himself wondering less about how he had survived his ordeal unscathed than about the girl whose name seemed to be the only thing he'd managed to hold on to through whatever injury or trauma had robbed him of his memories.

A single name wasn't much to go on, but it was a tangible connection to his past, proof that his life up until he'd ended up in that box hadn't been lived in a vacuum, that there was at least one person out there who knew and cared about him…maybe. After all, he had no idea what kind of relationship he'd had with this girl… But he quickly dismissed that thought. Whoever she was, she must have been very important to him if he could forget everything else about his life, even his own name, and still remember hers. Surely he wouldn't have formed such a strong attachment to her without a good reason.

There was only one window in the back room of the pub where Caitlin had left him, and it was too high for him to see out of it from his current position, but he looked up at it anyway as he wondered where the mysterious Bella was right now, and whether she was missing him as much as he imagined he would miss her if only he could remember her.

 _Current Cullen residence - somewhere in the mountains of Colorado_

To say that Bella missed Peter would be the understatement of the century - he was practically all she had thought about since her awakening. She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment when she fell in love with him, but there was no denying that it had happened. Before she met him, her life had been emptier than she had ever wanted to acknowledge; Peter had made her a better person, got her to care about more than just herself and the very few people (mainly her parents and Elle) she knew and liked. The old Bella never would have put herself at risk to help a cheerleader she'd never met and, as much as it shamed her to admit it, would probably have fled New York before the explosion, leaving the city to its fate. Peter had inspired her, encouraged her, believed in her and made her want to live up to his expectations...and now he was gone.

She knew he would want her to carry on without him, but she had no idea how she was supposed to do that, especially since her life was over anyway. She couldn't go back to college - she could just imagine the looks on her professors' faces if she walked into class with her sparkling skin and red eyes, and she definitely wouldn't be able to explain away her long absence after that night on Kirby Plaza. What would she say? _Why yes, I_ was _brain dead for about ten weeks, give or take a few days, but I'm better now... Any chance I could get an extension on all those assignments I missed?_

Going home to her parents wasn't an option either. Even if they could deal with the changes in her, which was doubtful, she couldn't endanger them by telling them the truth about what she had become, no matter how desperately she wished she could see them again. If only she had them with her, maybe she could force herself to get up and at least try to pretend she was okay for their sake.

Without them, she had no incentive to even go through the motions, so she remained curled up in her corner and spent her time obsessively reliving every moment she'd had with Peter in an attempt to brand them on her mind. Her human memories seemed more distant with each passing day, and she was terrified that one day she wouldn't be able to recall the exact shade of his eyes, or his smile, or some important detail of their conversations, until eventually she forgot him altogether... As much as it hurt to think about him, not being able to remember would be worse.

There was one memory, though, that always came back to her with excruciating clarity: the way he'd looked at her as he confessed his feelings in the moment before he exploded, clearly anticipating her rejection. Worse still, he'd said he had been in love with her 'for a long time'...and she'd never had a clue. The irony of it all never failed to hit her like a punch in the gut; after spending so much time reading classic romances and fantasizing about literary figures like Romeo and Mr. Darcy, she'd finally met a real-life hero who easily surpassed all her fictional crushes, and he, for reasons she couldn't even begin to guess at, had loved her - but she had been totally oblivious, because she had hidden behind her walls, both figurative and literal, for too long and allowed herself to become so emotionally stunted that she no longer saw anything beyond the end of her own nose.

She couldn't bear to think of how hard it must have been for him, being forced to pretend he only liked her as a friend while keeping his true feelings buried, apparently afraid she would be repulsed if she knew... Knowing he had gone through all that just to be near her, that she had made him unhappy during the last months of his life through her thoughtless, boneheaded insensitivity, only compounded her anguish over losing him and further sapped her will to do anything other than torment herself with her memories. The pain those memories brought her was no more than she deserved after the way she'd treated him.

The Cullens tried several times to talk her out of her depression, either individually or in groups - all except Jasper, who couldn't stand the grief and guilt pouring out of her. Even Rosalie, who generally held herself aloof, crept into her room one night while the others were out to take a stab at getting through to her. She approached cautiously and sat down a good five feet from Bella; it had only taken a couple of days for her to grow tired of their efforts to feed her, and after that anyone who came too close found themselves bouncing off her shield. As Emmett noted in a rather flat attempt at humor, talking to her had literally become an exercise in beating their heads against a wall.

"Hey, Bella." As usual, the brunette gave no sign that she had heard anything, but Rosalie didn't let that deter her. "Look, I know I was a bit standoffish before - remember those times you visited our house in Forks, when Elle taught you how to use your shield after the accident with that Newton boy? I barely said a word to you... Of course, you didn't seem to mind since you were only interested in picking Elle's brain; still, it was inexcusably rude."

Bella vaguely recalled Rosalie hovering in the background while she and the former Company agent worked on her control over her power, along with the rest of the family - they were all intrigued by the idea of people who could manifest abilities similar to their own while still human. Unlike the rest of them, however, Rosalie's demeanor had always been rather closed off, even slightly hostile, and Bella had gotten a feeling that the blonde didn't like her very much. It hadn't mattered to her then - she'd been much more interested in Rosalie's hulking husband, specifically in making sure she stayed as far away from him as possible - and it certainly didn't matter to her now, although a tiny part of her did wonder why Rosalie felt the need to apologize for slighting her after all this time.

"Esme wasn't pleased with me - she said I, of all people, should have been nicer to you, because I...I once had an experience very much like yours. It happened a long time ago, when I was still human; like you, I was left battered and bleeding in the street, and I would have died if Carlisle hadn't found me... I suppose that's why I couldn't bring myself to make more of an effort with you; irrational as it was, I envied you because you had been saved without having your humanity taken away. You don't know how many times I've wished Carlisle could have done that for me, instead of- But this isn't about me. I'm sorry; it's easy to start rambling when you're carrying on a one-sided conversation."

She glanced sideways at Bella, but the girl was still gazing blankly at the opposite wall. Sighing, she went on, "My point is that I think I understand some of what you're feeling; I never wanted this life either, and I would sacrifice a great deal for the chance to be human again...but being a vampire really isn't the worst thing in the world. In fact, parts of it can actually be enjoyable." She paused for a moment, weighing her words before continuing. "I know it's awful, what happened with Peter-" She hesitated again, wondering if saying his name might get some sort of response, but apart from a slight stiffening of her spine - so slight it could have simply been Rosalie's imagination - Bella showed no reaction.

"We _can_ move past losses from our human lives, though. Esme mentioned that she told you about her son... As devastating as his death was for her, she managed to find happiness in this life. What she was too nice to tell you is that the key is to get up and try; sitting there wallowing in your grief over a relationship you never even had is only making it worse. You're not the only one who's suffering, you know - even if you never leave this room, your misery has permeated this whole place like some kind of invisible toxic mold, and Jasper won't even come within a mile of the house anymore. Of course Carlisle blames himself for allowing you to be changed; even Elle is sorry for her part in it, and I thought she was incapable of remorse. We all feel horrible about how you lost the love of your life, but you have to realize that we didn't do this to hurt you. It's not fair for you to keep punishing everyone like this."

Her words pricked at Bella's conscience; she knew she was being unfair to the Cullens, and she was sorry they were hurting because of her when all they had wanted was to save her life. Still, she couldn't help feeling a certain amount of resentment toward them - not for changing her, she couldn't blame them for that since she had never bothered to give them the equivalent of a 'do not resuscitate' order, and in all fairness, she probably wouldn't have objected to becoming immortal if it hadn't meant eternal separation from the man she loved - but because their lives had all turned out so perfectly. Most of them seemed to have no regrets at all, and even the ones like Rosalie and Esme who had lost something when they left their humanity behind had gained something better in exchange; Rosalie found Emmett, while Esme got Carlisle and five new children which, while they couldn't fully replace her biological son, at least helped to fill the void.

Bella, on the other hand, knew there was no such silver lining in store for her. She had already met the only man she could ever or would ever love, and no one could take his place.

After a moment, seeing that her words had seemingly had no effect, Rosalie let out a barely audible sigh of frustration, got up, and walked away.

###

The next day, the Cullens gathered for a family meeting, which was held on the front lawn so Jasper wouldn't have to go inside the house. "Things simply cannot go on as they have this past month," Carlisle stated without preamble. "I know we all sympathize deeply with Bella, yet all our efforts at reaching her thus far have failed. We need to come up with a different approach-"

"There's nothing we can do," Jasper said flatly. "She doesn't want anything to do with us; all she wants is Peter Petrelli."

"So let's bring him to her," Elle suggested. Seven pairs of golden eyes stared at her, silently questioning her sanity. "Don't look at me like that, I know he's dead. I'm talking about his body - we could bury him, and maybe having a grave to visit would help Bella find closure or whatever."

"That...is actually quite a good idea," Esme said slowly.

"With one glaring flaw - you guys went back to Kirby Plaza after he blew up, and you said there was nothing left," Emmett pointed out. "Not even ashes. Right, Edward?"

"That's right," Edward agreed, revisiting the scene in his mind. "By the time we arrived, there was no sign of Peter or Bella..." He suddenly froze, his eyes opening wide. "...And we never thought to ask the most obvious question of all: _how did Bella end up in the hospital?_ "

"You said the strain of using her shield to contain a nuclear explosion was too much for her," Alice reminded him.

"Yes, we know _why_ she was hospitalized, but how did she _get_ there? She could hardly have hailed a taxi, and with Peter dead, there was no one to summon assistance for her...unless somebody else got there before Elle and I did."

"The Company," she hissed. "I can't believe I didn't think of them sooner!"

"You had other things on your mind," Edward said soothingly. "Your best friend's life was hanging in the balance-"

"Are you sure it was them?" Esme asked. "Isn't it possible someone else stumbled across Bella and called an ambulance?"

"Are you kidding? The whole thing happened right outside Linderman's office! I bet his goons swooped in as soon as the dust settled and stuck Peter in some hazardous waste container," Elle said darkly.

"But why would Daniel Linderman have Bella taken to a hospital?" Alice wondered. "From everything I've heard about him, he doesn't seem like the type to do anything out of the goodness of his heart."

Elle shrugged. "Why knows why Linderman does anything? This is the guy who thought blowing up millions of people was the key to... Actually, I have no idea what he was trying to accomplish except for getting Nathan into office, and he really, _really_ wanted to see Peter go kablooey. I should've killed him when I had the chance - Linderman, that is, not Peter."

"You _would_ think homicide is the answer to everything," Rosalie muttered. Raising her voice to normal volume, she asked, "So you and Edward are going to go and try to reclaim Peter's remains from Primatech?"

"I think it's an excellent idea," Carlisle said enthusiastically. "I really do believe this could help Bella, and if nothing else, the man deserves a proper burial."

Alice immediately volunteered to arrange their transportation, and the meeting broke up soon afterward, with everyone feeling satisfied that they had come up with a good plan...all except one.

When the Cullens had decided where to hold their discussion, their main consideration had been how their proximity to Bella would affect Jasper, not whether she would be able to hear what they were saying. As it turned out, Jasper's range for detecting others' emotions didn't extend as far as a vampire's hearing, so Bella overheard every word, and what she heard left her seething.

While she was deeply touched that they were willing to go to such lengths to help her find 'closure', whatever that meant, she couldn't believe they thought a box of ashes and charred bones was an acceptable substitute for Peter. None of them would be satisfied with that if it was _their_ mate who had died, but listening to Rosalie's speech last night had made her realize that they didn't truly understand how she felt; they still thought - or maybe hoped - it was just a silly human crush that she could get over. She also suspected, since Elle had been the one who pushed so hard for her to be changed, that the blonde wanted to do something to make it up to her, but she already knew it wasn't going to work.

Elle and Edward left the following day, and Bella found herself dreading their return. She didn't want to visit Peter's grave, to see the sad remains that really had nothing to do with the person he had been, nor did she want to disappoint everyone all over again. _It would be better if I left, if I was gone before they came back. Then things could go back to normal for everyone, and I wouldn't have to feel guilty anymore about what I'm doing to them._

The more she thought about it, the more attractive the idea of leaving seemed, but she could never muster the will to act on it. Two things held her back: first, she had nowhere to go, and second, she doubted the others would let her walk away just like that. They wouldn't be able to stop her, but they would follow her to the ends of the earth; she was still a newborn, after all, and they felt responsible for her.

Then, a couple of days after Edward and Elle's departure, the rest of the family went out hunting. Bella held her breath for three hours, wondering how far they had gone, if they would be back soon, but her enhanced senses detected no trace of their presence, no warning of their imminent return. For the first time in approximately four months, there was no one hovering over her. She could hardly believe it, but then, why should anyone have stayed? They certainly didn't think she was going anywhere. If she really wanted to leave, it was now or never.

Summoning every ounce of willpower she still possessed to break through the apathetic inertia that had consumed her since she learned of Peter's death, she slowly shifted her weight onto her feet and straightened her knees, pushing herself upright. Her new body responded effortlessly to her commands despite having gone so long without moving a muscle, but she still crept hesitantly through the house, fighting the urge to scuttle back into her corner, until she reached the front door and stepped over the threshold.

The instant she left the house, a weight seemed to drop off her shoulders; out here, she was free of everyone's expectations and disapproval. She gradually picked up her pace as she walked off the veranda and crossed the sweeping, grassy lawn, then broke into a run as she started down the mountain pass leading away from the house, sprinting faster and faster until her feet barely seemed to touch the ground.

She knew at some point she would have to find a stream or other body of water to stop the Cullens from tracking her scent; beyond that, she had no idea where she was going, but wherever she ended up, she would finally be alone. There would be no more well-meaning, meddling vampires tiptoeing around her and speaking of her in hushed voices as if she had some deadly disease, or talking about her like she was an inanimate object that couldn't understand what they were saying...and if she felt like finding a quiet place where she could curl up and give in to her despair, there would be no one to stop her.


End file.
